Mike Has A Thought

"Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet."
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
US essayist & poet (1803 - 1882)

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Well, here i am. I figure with some extra time on my hands to type away i would start writing in my blog again. It seems a lot has changed since the original thoughts behind having a running blog and the thoughts that occurred to me while running.

First, i believe i successfully changed careers, going from the banking world to finance. So far so good.Second, i went from a novice-oh-my-gawd can i run a marathon to a guy who has ran 6.third and last, after spending so much time worried about politics that i forgot to concetrate on the important things in the blog.

Well, let me say, there is plenty to rip on with regards to our left-of-center politicians these days and being a center type guy they're gonna get whats coming to them as well.

So i figure 2 maybe 3 posts a week, again mostly commentary on things a see and runs i do, with fun-guv throwing in a few posts about the family every now and then.

Monday, April 13, 2009

OMG!!!!!

Sometimes I really wonder about my husband. I swear, he can get away with just about anything ~ you wouldn't believe the movies and/or TV shows that he introduces my family to...

Yesterday evening we went to my dad's house to celebrate Easter & Jimmy's birthday. We had a great time hanging out and visiting, my grandma was there too...most of our friends have met her, she's a fun lady to hang out with.

Later on in the evening, after Mack had made us all watch Twilight ~ Jimmy was the smart one and hung out downstairs playing the Wii ~ we determined that Desperate Housewives was going to be a rerun. Mike piped up that it was the season finale of Rock of Love Bus at 9pm so he promptly found VH1 on their TV and settled in to watch it ~ he loves the show for the train wreck that it is.

He explained to my grandmother that it was like the bachelor, but a bit more sleezy. Ya think? Grandma really seemed to get into it. It was very interesting to hear her take on everything...she was not impressed with Bret Michaels at all ~ she thought they should be competing for a far better looking prize! Of course the sleezy outfits and fake boobs didn't impress her either. She completely understood the whole train wreck aspect of it though.

In the last 30 minutes or so my father joined the gathering in front of the TV, so now I'm spending Easter watching the ultimate in white trash TV with my dad, my grandma, my step-mom and my husband....how can it be any better? My dad found the whole thing amusing too, needless to say. It truly did end up being one of those shows that's fun to make fun of with a group while watching.

Oh, but wait it did get better....

Suddenly a commercial comes on and I swear I died and went straight to HELL!!!!

What better crowd to watch this commercial with than your dad, your step-mom and your grandma????? We all died with laughter and I swear my face was beet red!

Monday, February 23, 2009

Rent

Yesterday MacKenzie finally got to see Rent! She's been a huge fan of the soundtrack ~ I realized she has memorized every.single.word on that soundtrack (if you know some of the words, that's not necessarily a good thing!) ~ and had watched the movie countless times. Finally she got to do what she's been wanting to do for over two years (she became interested about a week after it left the Detroit area the last time it was here ~ she has her father's timing)...Santa brought her a ticket to yesterday's matinee performance.

She was in heaven and enjoyed every minute of it ~ and so did I it was great to see it again. Now she wants to be Mimi for Halloween next year ~ oh my!

On another note, same basic subject....where did simple theatre etiquette go? Granted, it was a matinee performance and there were a ton of high school aged kids there, the bulk of the audience ranged from about 15-30 years old; but wouldn't this be a great time to teach students about how to behave in public?

My first gripe....dressing for the performace. If I had a dollar for every kid in jeans & a t-shirt or hoodie, I'd have a nice little stack of cash, but add the number of adults dressed that way...I'd be rich! I mean seriously, come on, I'm not asking for formal wear, but maybe some casual dress pants & a decent shirt.

Second gripe...stay in your flippin' seat. You paid a minimum of $45 for the damn ticket...watch the show! I will say I was surprised, I expected more up & down from people, but there was one person that got up with only 2 songs left in the first act to use the bathroom (I assume, he wasn't gone very long). We were in the first row of the balcony so most movement didn't affect us, we had the main wide aisle between the mezzanine & the balcony in front of us, but of course this guy was sitting in the mezzanine right in front of us so his big fat head blocked us twice. There was another one that got up during the second act, but his cell phone rang and you know...gotta answer that ~ he better have been a doctor. The worst part was that it was during a time when Mark (Anthony Rapp, original Broadway cast member) was addressing the audience and he appeared to have noticed the movement up there.

Third gripe...don't text during the performance. This one really got me. Great everyone turned off their phones so no ringing during the performance, but hello, when you open your phone & start texting in a dark theatre, the light your phone gives off is a tad distracting. The far section of the mezzanine was empty, they sold upward instead of sideways it appears. During the first act it was empty, but handful of people moved down there for the second act from up top. I swear, one guy texted the entire second act. WTF??? Everytime he flipped open his phone my eye was drawn to the light. Very freaking annoying.

Fourth & final gripe...sit still in your seat and shut up! The girl behind me (wearing a hoodie & jeans) couldn't sit still. She pounded on my back with her knees & feet the entire performance. At one point my hair got caught between the seat & her knee and I almost gave myself a bald spot when I moved my head. Also, the girl next to her started to sing along to one of the songs. Uh, I paid to hear them sing, not you. Mack noticed it too so I turned around & shot her a look of death....she shut up instantly.

I don't want to sound like a theatre snob, but I thought most of this was just common sense/decency. I know, I know, there is no such thing as common sense any more. I just think that if you teach it young and don't give any other options, then gee maybe it will stick into adulthood. Just so frustrating.

We see the same problem at our middle school band concerts. I remember being in band in middle school and we lined up in the band room in our order. Walked into the gym (where the concert was held) silently; stood in front of our seats until everyone was there then got the cue to sit. We all sat quietly, set up our music on the stand and waited for the band teacher to start us playing. The parents sat quietly and listened and it was all taken very seriously as if we were at Orchestra Hall instead of the school gym. Mike had essentially the same experience.

Mack's band teacher...not even an ounce of that kind of respect for the performance & the adults behavior during the concert shows that. The kids all come in whenever they show up, chat, screw around, etc (heck, the first chair alto sax showed up to the last concert about 3 seconds before they were about to begin and had to dig a chair out of the back because they'd taken it away thinking she wasn't coming). The band director comes in cracks a few jokes to them, cracks a few to the audience and they start. The parents in the audience act accordingly, they get up and walk across the front of the stage in the middle of a song, they answer their cell phones and everything in-between. You should see Mike & I crawling out of our skin during the concerts. To top it off it'd be one thing if they played really good, but I've posted videos, judge for yourself... I'm not saying Mack is a prodigy, she needs some work, but she takes private lessons and sometimes I wonder if I'm wasting my money because she's stuck in that type of a program. Fortunately the HS band director runs a much better program (and I'm not saying that just because he's my boss!) and he agrees with our assessment of the MS band director, though I don't know if I can make it through another year of this til we get to the high school. But what can you do?

I guess I just answered my own question of where the rude behavior at the theatre comes from huh? I guess I can just do my part to teach my kids and bite my tongue and deal with the rest of the morons on the planet...so not fair, but what else can I do?

Monday, February 02, 2009

It's Official

Mike is registered for the Flying Pig in May. We signed up Saturday night just minutes before the entry fee went up $15! We like to fly by the seat of our pants around here. He started training a couple of weeks ago and from what I can tell, so far so good...'cept all his miles have been logged on the dread mill (and I got a nice electric bill to prove it). Yesterday he did take advantage of the nice weather and ran to my dad's house (about 12 miles steadily uphill the entire way with a huge elevation shift in the last 2 miles) to watch the Super Bowl. I keep telling him that the elevation shift is good training for the hilly Flying Pig.

This weekend he should be able to log some sunny miles while he's down in Bradenton, FL visiting his grandmother...he can't spend three entire days at the hospital, he'll go nuts.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Alright, I have a confession....last night at 10:00 there was nothing on so we scanned the cable menu. Oh look VH1 is running Rock of Love Bus, lets check out a whole episode. OMG!!! What a mindless piece of crap. The little snippets we'd seen Sunday night now make tons more sense, but even Mike said that the Bachelor had more substance than this show. At least some of the girls on the Bachelor are educated and have held real jobs. I think the only one in this group that had some semblance of a job was the Penthouse Pet.

We both agreed that even the Tool Academy and True Beauty were better than this show...now that is sad!

Monday, January 12, 2009

Yet Another Train Wreck...

Last night we found probably a new all time low in TV viewing choices. Sunday nights leave a bit to be desired on the TV viewing front and of course it's the evening that we most like to veg out in front of the TV before heading back into another hectic week.

Last week we checked out Confessions of a Teen Idol on VH1. Honestly we tuned in to see which "Teen Idols" would be on the show and stuck around to see what exactly was going to happen. We forgot to tune in last night, but did catch the last 20 minutes. When was Adrian Zmed a teen idol? Now Billy Huffsey...remember him from Fame? He was hot! Keyword there WAS ~ yeah, not so much anymore. Christopher Atkins is still looking good after all these years, though I'll admit I've never seen Blue Lagoon...I was too young when it came out and never went back and watched it. Though Mike fondly remembers him from The Pirate Movie...which unfortunately I've seen thanks to free On Demand movies.

Of course Sunday nights brings the obligatory Desperate Housewives, which we will both admit to watching. Though Mike says he'd prefer to watch Rock of Love Bus...he loves trashy women (and yes, I'm not dumb, I know what he's saying there) and of course this show is chocked full of them. We jumped back & forth during commercials and all I can say is WOW ~ I've never seen so many fake boobs before in my life! And seriously Brett Michaels...are you really loooking for love or just hanging on to those last strands of semi-fame and using it to sleep with every trashy woman on the planet? Puh-leeze

But the crowning jewel of Sunday nights TV watching had to be back on VH1 for Tool Academy. The guys on the show were literally tools. The worst part is trying to figure out why these dumb women are still with them trying to change them....why don't they just leave???? That was the ultimate train-wreck. Unfortunately, we'll probably be tuning in the next few weeks since there is nothing else on Sunday nights at 10pm...God help us. It appears that it will be running again tonight at 10:30 if anyone is interested in some serious trashy T.V.

Saturday night after our marathon of bad 80s movies (Mannequin, Licensed to Drive, Weekend at Bernies, Vacation, Doc Hollywood & Better Off Dead) we stopped on ABC and ended up catching the tail end of True Beauty being re-run. Of course we had to stay on it because Mack was sucked into the train wreck even though we told her who was going home. Aaaaarrrrrgggghhhh!

Tuesday, January 06, 2009

Watching A Train Wreck....on TV

OK, I'll be the first to admit that I like to watch some questionable shows on TV. Never missed a season of the Bachelor/Bachelorette or Dancing with the Stars, will tune in occasionally to America's Got Talent and will linger longer than necessary on other mindless TV shows.

But last night I think we hit an all time low....True Beauty. It was on at 10:00 after the premier of the Bachelor and since I was working on scrapbooking and not really paying attention I left it on for background noise. Mike was ready to head to the computer and catch up on Facebook...he hasn't been there in the last 2-3 weeks. But then the unthinkable happened...it turned into a train wreck and neither one of us could stop watching the horror. Nothing like group of 10 people who think they are the hottest people on the planet tell you how hot they are for an hour during prime time.

When the show finally ended we both just looked at each other and questioned....they cancelled Boston Legal, a funny, topical, intelligent and sometimes irreverant dramady and put this in it's time slot? That has got to be the biggest slap in the faces of TV viewers. We don't need anymore "reality" TV and we certainly don't need this type of "reality".

I mean seriously...ABC already took away October Road a well written show with characters you could care about and that actually captured small town America pretty well. Plus, since it was cancelled after the second season (just after the writers strike) we were left with about 800 cliff hangers.

Now there's talk of Dirty Sexy Money being cancelled...what are they going to replace that with, a knock off of NBC's Momma's Boy? And no, we haven't watched a single minute of that train wreck. Also, Eli Stone is going away too... being replaced with another Primetime: What Would You Do? series. Seriously? This has been done to death as well...though I will admit, I'd like to see the obnoxious Americans in France....as they check out the Eifel Tower and debate if the one in Vegas is actually larger.

Honestly, I don't watch THAT much TV as this post makes it look like. There are just a couple of shows that I really enjoy(ed) watching and it's irritating and insulting when the networks pull them and replace them with mindless crap.